Industry forum roundup

11 May 2017, Jo Prowse, Chief Executive

If you missed the forum yesterday, here’s a quick round up of the day and five key take-aways from it. You can also find my speech and the slide deck below. As ever, don’t hesitate to contact should you need to speak to us.

1. Delivering for all stakeholders
Our theme for the day was delivering for all stakeholders, whether consumer, industry or fellow public bodies. We spend a lot of time speaking to you to ensure we are able to deliver for all of you. Many of you took part in our recent stakeholder survey – thanks to all who contributed. It was good to see you endorsed our vision and strategic priorities, our open, collaborative approach and the fairness of our actions. At the same time you gave us some feedback on areas where we might continue to improve including responding more quickly to issues in some areas and making it easier for new entrants to the market to navigate our Code and ensure their services are compliant. We are taking all this feedback on board and working on it. Look out for more detail on the findings soon.

2. Market outpayments
We’re still finalising the figures but we are expecting outpayments to be approximately £470 million in FY1617, up from £433 million in FY1516. Operator billing continues to perform well, growing around 30% last year. Look out for more detailed analysis in the Annual Market Review, which is due out in July.

3. Sharp drop in complaints
We handled around half a million consumer contacts in the last financial year, most of these through automated means, and 34,000 complaints. However, I’m glad to report that we have seen a sharp decline in complaints in recent months from a peak in September last year.

4. Changes to our sanctioning
We’re currently consulting on our approach to sanctioning. Like you, we think sanctions need to deter providers from non-compliance, supporting consumer trust in phone-paid services and a thriving market. But we’d like to hear your views on our proposals. But be quick! The consultation closes on May 18th.

5. Regulatory and legislative updates
We were joined by representatives from Ofcom, DCMS and the FCA to discuss regulatory and legislative developments in their space but which have an effect on the phone-paid services market. Of particular interest to a number of you was the FCA’s work on PSD2. They are currently consulting on their approach and guidance on implementing PSD2. Deadline for responses is June 8th.